Let those spreading 'Fake News' and disseminating poor content, beware: Google's new Search Quality Raters Guidelines have you in their sights!

Google Search Quality Raters - What They Mean to Your Business

Google's Search Quality Raters Guidelines are going to impact millions of Internet users (and more importantly, abusers) in the months and years to come. So if you're not across these new guidelines, or else make a living out of corrupting the system for your own ends, be afraid. Be very afraid.

To find out what these Search Quality Raters Guidelines mean to your business, read on. Because the changes to online content will be, *insert dodgy Trump impression here*: "Huuuuuuuuuuuuge!".

​Google's Quality Raters and Their Impact On Search

Let's start with the obvious question: 'What are Quality Raters, exactly?'. Quality Raters are a Google Army of over 10,000 (and growing) independent contractors whose job it is to check that the facts they read on websites are accurate, and that the content and the website that content is on, is reputable. They check the credibility of websites, report images that are illegal or offensive, and help push the best pages to the top of Google's search results.

They are also tasked with getting rid of false, offensive, or generally hateful information that has been showing up all too frequently in Google searches of late, by using humans to supplement super-smart machine-learning algorithms like Panda, in order to stem the tide of dross that is forever pouring into the internet.

Good luck with putting that particular genie back in the bottle I hear you cry!

But what exactly are Google's Search Quality Raters targeting? To find out the answer to this, I invite you to read Google's 157 page Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines document. A document that covers everything from understanding YMYL pages ('Your Money or Your Life'), to learning how to spot EAT pages ('High Level of Expertise / Authoritativeness / Trustworthiness'), and everything in-between.

But if reading 157 pages of techno-babble sounds a little too much like hard work, then allow me to give you the crib notes, so you can get a handle on the topic without devoting three days of your life to the task!

1: Fake News!

'Fake News!' can be viewed as the dissemination of misleading and falsified information presented as fact. Whether this involves using a website to exaggerate the truth, or else completely make things up, this is a tactic that simply isn't going to fly in Google anymore. The irony of course in all the 'Fake News!' brouhaha, is that Trump, the king of 'Fake News!', was the very person to coin the phrase. Thus to a very real degree, allowing him to own it.

Do you remember the end of the Curtis Hanson, '8 Mile' film, when Eminem is in a rap-battle against that guy who hates him? And how Eminem - going first - uses all the negative stuff that he knows his opponent will say about him. But says it first? Thus getting ahead of the 'information' and self-deprecating to a point where he OWNS his faults, his flaws, and by so doing takes the power away from his opponent who can no longer use the self same 'facts' as weapons. Well that's exactly what Trump's done. By coining the phrase, 'Fake News!' and using it against real news outlets like CNN, BBC NEWS, et al, he has been able to blatantly lie about just about everything, while instantly shielding himself from the inevitable criticisms from those very organisations who actually care about pesky little things like facts, because he has a ready-made response that says that anyone who disagrees with him, or questions what he says, is simply spreading 'Fake News!'.

The tactic is breathtakingly Machiavellian. And if it weren't so insidious, so downright evil, then one might actually admire the audacity and scope of it. But given it's coming out of Trump's warped and twisted psyche, 'admiration' is not a word that'll spring to mind in anyone with an IQ in triple digits...

With its newly hired army of fact-checkers, Google is now going to be working to combat the spread of 'Fake News!' (because Trump is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to lies being disseminated as facts on the internet). So when 'Fake News!' sites are spotted by the Quality Raters, they will now be pushed down in the search results, thus preventing them from organically being found. And (hopefully) preventing them from 'going viral'.

Google Search Raters Guidelines state that any websites that mimic other, more prominent sites, specially news sites, are going to be hit big by these new guidelines. For example, any sites that are designed to look and function like news sites but actually contain false or misleading information will be going down hard. These kinds of sites typically exist to misinform readers and spread false information / propaganda etc, for the gain or benefit of some other person or organisation.

We now live in a post Trump world. And like it or not, while he still has his finger on the launch codes and the Twitter Feeds (God help me, I don't know which is more dangerous), then we are all of us at the mercy of 'Fake News'. So hats-off to Google for trying to eradicate the disease at its source.

Of course Google are not the only boffins trying to ﻿eradicate the 'Fake News' epidemic﻿. Two professors (technology professor Dongwon Lee and communications professor S. Shyam Sundar) from Penn State university recently received a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop technology that will enable digital devices to weed out fake news. So expect other left-leaning, politically savy tech minded people to join in the battle over the coming months.

Bots v Trolls - What is the Difference?

Of course if you're weeding out Fake News, you need to know whether you're dealing with a bot (a computer program pretending to be a person), or a troll (a low-life nut-job-cum-online-bully pretending to be a person).

2: Getting Rid of Hate Speak

Any overtly racist or hateful content will now, thanks to Google's Quality Raters, be given a lower spot in the search results, and in many cases, will be removed from the search results completely. Pages that promote hate speech or actions against specific groups of people are now able to be tagged with an "Upsetting-Offensive" flag.

Of course this has the potential to get into very murky waters, as the internet was founded on freedom of speech and the spreading of ideas. And when one organisation (no matter how noble their intent) starts being the judge, jury and executioner of what should, and should not be shared on the internet, then we're suddenly a lot closer to 1984 than 2017. Censorship being one of the most insidious of all the evils.

That said, if a website is promoting hate speech against the gay and lesbian community, or a particular religion or ethnic minority, or engaging in internet bullying, or attempting to re-write history by saying that the Holocaust never happened because 'Hitler was right', etc...then is the internet really losing anything when said content is buried on page 968 of a particular Google search? I suspect not.

But again, censorship is as censorship does. And it's a slippery slope when an all-powerful organisation starts to make judgement calls on content, just because said organisation deems it to be against guidelines it internally came up with, and which may or may not (depending on the individual reader's moral compass or beliefs) be 'offensive'. And just because you and I, and most of the people we know, disagree with what is being written, we should never disagree with the author's unalienable right to write it.

3: Getting Rid of Clickbait

One of the biggest problems plaguing the web right now is clickbait. To understand why clickbait is so bad, you must first understand what it is:

Clickbait articles usually feature shocking or catchy headlines designed to make people click on the article so they will be redirected to an external website which exists purely to make revenue off paid advertisements. The problem with this method is that the actual pages the reader goes to when they click on the click bait stories, contain nothing of substance. In many cases they may not even answer the question posed by the catchy headline at all. They exist purely to drive the reader to an external website and make the reader click through dozens of pages in order to see so called 'facts', one 'fact' at a time. The model being that each page a 'fact' or 'story' appears on, is surrounded by paid adverts. And the website owner receives revenue every time a sucker clicks on an advert. And sometimes they even get paid per 'impression' rather than 'per click'. So the website owner makes money even if the readers ignore the ads because the advert has been 'served' and therefore seen by the reader. Ker-ching, Ker-ching.

Google wants the web to be full of brilliantly written, well researched, knowledgeable information that answers a reader's search query. However, because so many people click on those misleading titles, those posts are rapidly moving up the search results and gaining traction because of an increased Click Through Rate. So they get to rank well, even though they do not deserve to. Googles Quality Raters are aiming to help combat this.

Clickbait Examples

4: EAT - 'Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness'

E-A-T stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness” and it’s the yardstick Google’s Quality Raters use to help Google rank pages.

According to their guidelines (Section 4, Part 1), this is what constitutes 'High-Quality' pages:

Enough Main Content (MC): content should be ample enough to satisfy the needs of a user for a page’s unique topic and purpose (broad topics require more information than narrow topics, for example).

The page and its associated content is expert, authoritative, and trustworthy for the topic they discuss.

The website features supplementary content (SC) that enhances the user’s enjoyment and experience of a web page.

The page is designed in a functional fashion that allows users to easily locate the information they want.

The website is maintained and edited regularly and frequently.

Attempting to get your head around what EAT actually means is tricky, as ultimately what Google is talking about brings to mind the old 'chicken and egg' question (ie: which comes first?). To be trusted by Google on a particular topic, you need to be an expert on the topic (what you say), and brilliantly express that knowledge (how you say it) both vertically and horizontally on your website. This then leads to a 'Positive Reputation' for the new content as the pages then get trusted by Google, because Panda loves it and because human beings respond to the pages by staying on them a long time, by interacting with them, and by going to other similar / related (Supplementary Content) pages on the website.

But you can't get that 'Positive Reputation' if nobody finds the articles you've authored because they're buried on page 129 of Google, now can you? And therein lies the conundrum for Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs everywhere. Because you can't have an egg without a chicken. But you can't have a chicken without an egg...

You also can't fake the 'Expert' part. Because you either know what you're talking about or you don't. Plus the level of craft involved in how that knowledge is expressed on the page (the quality of the actual writing) is now of paramount importance. And with Panda being the most important algorithm out there, the days of you outsourcing your content writing to India to somebody named 'Frank' (real name 'Gupta') are gone. Because when it comes to content (like everything else in life): YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
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The takeaway in all this is that when it comes to EAT:

You need to be an expert in what you're writing about.

You need to be (or hire) a professional writer to express that knowledge on the page (because Panda can tell how well written the content is, and knows the difference between 'University Level Writing', 'High School Level Writing', 'Primary School Level Writing' and 'Donald Trump Level Writing').

5: Your Money or Your Life (YMYL)

There are websites and there are websites. Some sell widgets. They may be good widgets, they may be bad widgets. But one thing is for sure, 'believing' the information expressed on a particular web page about the widgets will not effect your health or your state of mind. Nor will it impact your happiness or income (unless you're stupid enough to spend your life-savings on buying a gazillion widgets I mean!). In other words, visiting a widgets' website is unlikely to impact Your Money or Your Life.

However if you read a site that tells you that taking X cures Y (when it doesn't). Or you read a 'Fake News' site that tells you that X happened and Y was responsible (when it didn't, and they weren't), then those things can impact Your Money and Your Life.

Google offers the following categories as examples of YMYL pages:

Any page with the potential to be dangerous or detrimental if it possessed low levels of EAT.

Shopping or financial transaction pages.

Pages that offer medical information about specific diseases or conditions or mental health.

Web pages which are important for maintaining an informed citizenry, including information about local/state/national government processes, people, and laws.

News about important topics such as international events, business, politics, science, and technology.

Government programs and social services.

The YMYL bottom line being that if your website is making bold claims, make them quantifiable and accurate claims. And if you website is stating facts, let those facts be, you know...factual.

Low Quality Content (and How to Spot it)

With the release of these new Quality Rater guidelines, it's obvious that Google is pushing more and more for websites to have well written, high quality, accurate content. But how do you as a Small Business Owner or Entrepreneur know if your website content is good enough? What exactly qualifies as low quality content anyway?

Good question! For a more in-depth answer to this, read the definitive Panda article. But so far as Google's human Quality Raters are concerned, think of it like this:

Your website content needs to be ORIGINAL. Not unique - nothing's unique on the world wide web - but ORIGINAL all the same. Have something to say that isn't just, 'We're great, buy our stuff!', because that's exactly what your competitors are saying on their site about themselves.

Your website content needs to be FACTUALLY CORRECT. Because if what you're saying is incorrect, or -worse - deliberately misleading...then your website will get nuked by Google big time.

Your website needs to be well designed. Because, while the Quality Raters aren't too fussed about how your website looks (functional wins over pretty in their eyes) functional and pretty wins over everything. So if your website is poorly presented, has a messy or cluttered design, or is hard to navigate, etc, your Google rankings will take a hit.

Your website content needs to be PROFESSIONALLY WRITTEN, because the Panda algorithm can tell great copy from good copy, and good copy from bad. And just because you can string a few words together in an email yourself, or just because you wrote a few papers whilst at uni, DOES NOT MAKE YOU A PROFESSIONAL COPYWRITER. Any more than having a driver's licence makes you a formula one driver. So if you care about ranking your website: CARE ABOUT THE COPY YOU PUT ON IT.

At the end of the day, if people do not have a good experience using Google, they will stop using Google's services altogether. So search quality is everything to Google, which is why they have to continue to release new algorithmic updates to combat the surge of low-quality content. And why now, for the first time ever, they've hired an army of HUMAN BEINGS to supplement the algorithms.

Essentially, when you click through to a website, Google wants whatever you find on that website to match your search expectations. This isn't rocket science, people!

Google's Search Quality Rater's Guidelines and You

So what's the takeaway here? That's easy: make sure you are REGULARLY publishing authentic, well written content and that any facts expressed in your content are well researched and accurate. What you put on your website must match or exceed the high search quality Google is now demanding for websites.

Let's recap how you can prepare for these guidelines and keep your search rankings intact:
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If you are creating content and headlines that could be considered clickbait, reconsider NOW.

You want visitors to find exactly what they're looking for, so prioritise the User eXperience by delivering high-quality content and a well thought-out and well designed website.

Never, under any circumstances, publish low-quality content on your website. It's not about the word or page count (though more is better if the writing is great), it's about the QUALITY of the writing.

Do not release any factually inaccurate information.

Spread fake news at your peril!

Indulge in hate-speak at your peril!

Share your quality content so you can get links from trusted sites, so your website has a 'positive reputation' in Google.

​How We Can Help

Ready to conquer the first page in the SERPS? Then call SEO North Sydney. We are here to assist with your all your small business's online marketing needs, including SEO, Web Design, Pay Per Click Advertising and Content Marketing.

In the digital domain, product offerings are constantly evolving, and it’s difficult for small business owners to keep abreast of what online services they need, or how to best to leverage them to positively impact their bottom line. Google Maps, for example, was launched in February 2005 (with much fanfare), and gave birth less than a month later to the Google Local Business Centre. Something which – we were told – was a must have for local business owners everywhere. The Local Business Centre in its turn was replaced by Google Places (launched September 2009). Then, in June 2014, that too morphed into Google My Business. A product that allows you to update business information across multiple Google platforms, via the same dashboard.

The genesis of Google My Business can be found in the difficulty and complexity local business owners previously encountered when having to set up and run both a Google Places listing and a Google plus account. The former was all about listing your business and being found locally. The latter was all about competing as a social media platform with Facebook, and sharing your information within your ‘Circles’ (think: sharing your information among your ‘Friends’ in Facebook vernacular).But before going into the specifics of actually setting up a Google My Business account, let’s first address the elephant in the room:

Why Small Businesses Needs a Google My Business Account

Google is omnipresent in the online and mobile worlds (think organic search, Gmail, YouTube, Android, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Street view, et al) and enjoys by far the biggest share of the user audience. So getting on Google’s good side is never a bad idea if you’re looking to get your business found by potential customers online.

Registering a Google My Business account helps your company get found in organic Google searches and across the many and varied matrix of Google product offerings. Something that is guaranteed to bring measurable, quantifiable and significant benefits to Australian small business owners and SMEs everywhere.

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a free, quick, easy and convenient way for businesses, products, brands and area-specific service providers to manage, promote and ultimately grow their online presence via Google.

The Google My Business dashboard (that you can access once your account has been setup) allows you to perform various tasks including (but not limited to):

Inputting and maintain your business / service information on Google.

Acquiring customers / clients with your own Google+ page.

People who follow your Google+ business page can provide feedback and show appreciation for your business / products / services by writing reviews and posts.

They can also use the +1 button in order to endorse your products / services on various Google platforms including Google+, Google Search, Google Maps and even on ads.

Measuring and tracking follower engagement using Insights for Google+ pages and posts.

Viewing information on any Google Analytics account and YouTube channels associated with your Business account.

The Two Categories of Local Pages

The two categories of local pages available while signing up for a Google My Business account are:

Storefront businesses: This category should be selected if customers are served at your business location and you want your customers to be able to locate your business on Google Maps.

Examples: retail stores, restaurants, hotels, auto repair shops.

Service area businesses: This category should be selected if you serve your customers at their location, within a particular service area and you want your customers to be able to see your service area on Google Maps.

If your correct business information shows up in the search results, click on it and proceed to step 6 below.

If your correct business information does not show up in the search results, click the option “None of these matches, add your business”.

Fill in the required information (Name, Address etc.) in order to add your business.

Google should create your Google+ page at this stage. Click the “I am authorised to manage this business” option and click Continue.

Click “Mail me my code” so that Google can mail a verification code to the address / location of your business.

Click “Add profile photo” to upload and add a photo to the account profile.

Add the remaining profile information fields like Business Hours, Contact Information, your Website URL. You can also add / upload more photos if desired.

Add an introduction to your page and click “Done editing”.

This should complete the setup of a standard Google My Business account.

How to Verify Your Google My Business Account

It is important to remember to verify your business with Google once you receive the verification code from them (see point 7 above), because your business won’t show up across any of the Google platforms (organic SEO aside) until they are 100% sure you are the legitimate owner or representative of the business you’re listing, and that your company is physically located where you say it is (hence sending a postcard with a verification code on it to the address you’ve listed).There are several ways to verify your business on Google My Business, but for the vast majority of Australian companies, verification will be done by Google sending you a postcard via Australia Post. This can take anything up to 2-3 weeks. During which time your business will NOT show up on Google Maps, etc.The benefits of verifying your business with Google should be self-evident, but the long and the short if is that a verified Google My Business account will allow you to:

Increase the chances of your business getting found across the various Google platforms including Google.com.au organic search and YouTube.

Read customer reviews and respond.

Get insights on where your customers are coming from and how they search for your business (keywords, etc), which feeds into your organic SEO and PPC strategies.

Verify Your Google My Business Account via Postcard

You’ve Verified Your Business With Google – Now What?

Shortly after you complete the verification, your business should start showing up on Google’s regular and local search results, on Google Maps and on Google plus.It is important to remember that while the Google My Business profile page is more or less a static page (though it can be edited if required), your Google+ page (that got automatically created during the My Business account creation process) is a full-blown social networking presence for your business, and therefore, updating it regularly with routine actions like making posts, responding to comments, creating and adding people to Circles (groups), following others etc, will significantly help drive engagement and yield maximum benefits to your business.Click here to get your company on Google My Business.

Written by Brian M LoganThe Doyen of All Things Digital SEO North Sydney

As a novelist, screenwriter and SEO copywriter, it's not too much of a stretch to say that words are my life. In my younger years, when I was a professional film actor, it was the spoken word that held my focus. But since then it's all been about the written word.

Like most writers I am obsessive about what words to use, in what order, and why. On the top end of that obsession you deal with issues of thematics, tone and voice. Of narrative and of structure. And at the bottom end you deal with spelling, punctuation and grammar.

This perfectionism (because that is surely what all writers suffer from) means that even something as mundane as an email or an sms / text, must be written well and correctly spelled. Language after all is a symphony made up of an endless amount of notes. And it only takes one 'bum' note to spoil your enjoyment of the music. As my late sainted mum used to say, "If you say it correctly, you'll spell it correctly". And in the digital age, we can perhaps flip that to read: "If you spell it correctly, you'll say it correctly".

Imagine my surprise then, when I read how Laszlo Bock (such a great name - must pinch that for my next novel!) Google's head of HR, revealed that Google instantly delete any CVs that contain spelling mistakes.

Apparently the Human Resources department at Google receives over 50,000 resumes per week. And, so Laszlo told Business Insider, if you have so much as a single spelling mistake on your resume, it ends up in the trash.Laszlo, who has himself reputedly reviewed over 20,000 resumes, said that upward of 58 percent of resumes Google receives have "Spelling mistakes, punctuation mistakes, or noun-verb agreement errors".When quizzed as to why he is so obsessive about spelling mistakes, et al, Laszlo said: "Typos are deadly because employers interpret them as a lack of detail-orientation, as a failure to care about quality".Which is pretty much what we writers have been saying all along!

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

Google have just announced that they have this week started rolling out the new and improved Panda algorithm. The roll out is expected to take a week to two weeks to totally proliferate the internet.

This Google Panda update is influenced by webmaster and user feedback, which has allowed Google to eek out a few more signals to help Panda identify low-quality content. This will result in a higher percentage and greater diversity in search results, and will enable high-quality small and medium-sized sites to rank higher against larger and traditionally more powerful sites.

This is a nice touch from Google, as the quality of the content should be the ultimate deciding factor in a page's worth, not the overarching power of the TLD it comes from. Sure, great content doesn't exist in a vacuum, but just like each individual page has its own page rank, so does each individual page have its own on-page ranking factors, with how great the content is being by far the most important.

It is expected that approximately 3-5% of all queries will be impacted.

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

The underlying framework and methodology driving social media development in 2010 was visual. In a social media landscape lorded over by words (think the original incarnations of Facebook and Twitter) 2010 saw both Pinterest (March 2010) and Instagram (October 2010) burst onto the scene with a focus on the insatiable human appetite for visual stimulation, via pictures and videos.

What is Instagram?

Instagram was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and is an online social networking service that focuses on mobile photo-sharing and video-sharing. It allows users to take pictures and videos and then easily and conveniently share them via a number of other popular social networking platforms such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr etc. Users are also able to apply a variety of digital filters to the pictures and videos they post.

Kevin Systrom (CEO, co-founder of Instagram)

Instagram Co-Founder, Kevin Systrom

Like many internet trail-blazers, Kevin Systrom went to Stanford University, graduating in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Management Science & Engineering. His initial foray into internet start-ups was as an intern at a company called ‘Odeo’, a search and directory website for RSS-syndicated audio and video that allowed users to record, create and share podcasts with a Flash-based interface. You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Odeo. But you probably will have heard of what Odeo would eventually morph into. A little known company called, ‘Twitter’.

After graduation, Kevin cut his teeth with a couple of very productive years working at Google, where he was tasked with developing Google Reader, Gmail and associated products as part of the Corporate Development team.

Kevin has a longstanding love for photography, which he and co-founder Mike Krieger combined brilliantly with the launch of Instagram.

Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram)

Instagram Co-Founder, Mike Krieger

Mike Krieger, like his long-time friend, Kevin Systrom, also graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Symbolic Systems, specialising in Human-Computer Interaction.

While doing his undergrad, Mike interned with Foxmarks (now Xmarks) as a software developer, and at Microsoft's PowerPoint team as a Product Manager.

His Master's thesis was a brilliant discourse on how user interfaces can be utilised to support large scale collaborations.

After graduating from Stanford, Mike worked for a year and a half at Meebo as a front-end engineer and user experience designer, before eventually joining the Instagram team doing design & development.

The Growth of Instagram

In March 2010, Burbn Inc. (the parent company of Instagram) received seed funding of $500,000. This was seven months before the actual photo-sharing social networking service was made available to the public.

In February 2011, a few months after the public launch, Instagram raised their series A funding round of $7 million from a consortium of venture capital funds. The company was valued at $25 million during this funding round.

Some 14 months later, in April 2012, Instagram raised another funding round of $50 million from venture capitalists, with a valuation of $500 million.

Instagram is Acquired by Facebook

Immediately after launch, Instagram started gaining huge popularity and reached a registered user base of a 100 million people in April 2012. This was technically only one and a half years after the official launch. At which time the company was acquired by Facebook for a mouth watering $1 billion (paid via a mix of cash and stock).

This purchase was by far Facebook’s most significant acquisition and was a definite indicator of how important mobile and photo sharing were becoming to Facebook. An interesting parallel for this purchase can perhaps be drawn with Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006. In as much as it demonstrated an internet behemoth with expertise in a particular area (search, in the case of Google, social media in the case of Facebook) acquiring expertise in an adjacent (but different) area, via purchasing a fast-growing start-up.

This purchase was unusual for Facebook, as its previous purchases of other start-ups were modest by comparison.

“This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.”

Facebook CEO and Founder, Mark Zuckerberg

Instagram – Features and User Demographics

Instagram allows users to upload photos and short 15-second videos, apply digital filters to create colour and contrast effects, and then enables them to share this content through social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Instagram deliberately restricts images to a square shape, in a nod and a wink to those wonderful instant Polaroid photos many of us grew up with. Instagram users can interact with content posted by other members by ‘liking’ it, or by following the user that posted it. They can also search for content using hashtags.

Instagram Picture

The Instagram mobile app is distributed primarily through Apple’s App Store, Google Play and Windows Phone Store. The app is supported on iPhone, iPad, iPad Touch, Android and Windows handsets, while third-party Instagram apps are available for BlackBerry 10 and Nokia-Symbian handsets and devices.

Boasting 200 million active users in 2014, Instagram’s user-base growth over the years has been nothing short of phenomenal:

Number of Active Users on Instagram

Number of Active Users on Instagram

Instagram Milestones and Achievements

Other important milestones and achievements for Instagram over the years include:

Instagram was declared the ‘iPhone App of the Year’ in December 2011.

Instagram app for Android Froyo version 2.2 launched in April 2012 got downloaded more than a million times in less than a day.

By July 2012, Instagram was rated more than a million times on Google Play, to become the 5th app ever to reach a million ratings.

As of April 2013, Instagram was rated more than four million times on Google Play.

A look at statistics from September 2013 reveals that a total of 16 billion photos and videos were shared via Instagram, with an average of 55 million new shares being made per day. At time of writing (August 2014) Instagram users are making an average of 1.2 billion new Likes per day.

According to another 2013 study, some 13% of all Internet users worldwide were found to be using Instagram. And some 70% of Instagram users were found to be logging on to the site daily, with 35% logging in more than once a day.

A 2014 study revealed that the Instagram mobile app user base registered a 25% growth between December 2013 and May 2014. And as of March 2014, a total of some 20 billion photos had been shared via Instagram. It has also been reported that in 2014, an average of one thousand new comments get posted on Instagram every second.

Unlike something like Google + (where people sign up, but hardly ever use it), Instagram demonstrably shows us that people come back again and again to the platform to both post and interact with other users. And it’s this interaction (much like Facebook itself) that allows us to see why Facebook valued the company at $1 billion in 2012.

As the following Statista chart demonstrates, Instagram has been found to be the 2nd most popular social media app among American smartphone users aged between 18 and 34:

Most Popular Social Media Apps Among Americans Aged 18-34

According to a 2013 study, some 25% of the Fortune 500 companies were using Instagram as a social media networking platform. A 2014 study indicates that some 43% of the top 100 brands post daily on Instagram, with the average number of posts made by these (top 100) brands on Instagram per week standing at 5.5. Some 65% of the world’s top 100 brands had Instagram accounts (as at 2013).

In 2014, the average value of sales orders generated via Instagram referrals has been found to be a very respectable $66.75. In a late 2013 study, Instagram was also found to deliver the 4th highest (1.08%) conversion rate among all social media platforms and services, trailing only Facebook (1.85%), Vimeo and YouTube (1.16% each).

Social Media Conversion Rate

A 2014 survey conducted by Social Media Examiner reveals that Instagram is among the top 10 social media platforms used by online marketers.

How Marketers Use Social Media

According to the SocialMediaMarketingReport of 2014, some 28% of online and social media marketers use Instagram as one of their marketing channels. This report also indicates that some 42% of the marketers (that were polled during the survey on which this report is based) were planning to increase their use of Instagram as a social media marketing platform. As this report further indicates, a significantly higher number (49%) of B2C marketers are likely to increase marketing activity via Instagram than their B2B counterparts (32% of which said they will increase Instagram activity).

Interestingly, the same percentage of marketers (i.e. 42%) also expressed their willingness to learn more about Instagram as a social media marketing and optimisation platform.

To paraphrase the old adage from the W. P. Kinsella novel, ‘Shoeless Joe’ (popularised in the classic 1989 movie, ‘Field of Dreams’): ‘

"If you build it, they will come."

And with more and more people flocking to this photo-sharing social network every day, it is not surprising that Instagram has emerged as one of the world's 'must use' platforms for businesses, online marketers and social media optimisers.

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

Written by Brian M LoganThe Doyen of All Things DigitalSEO North Sydney

Tired of feeling invisible on the internet? Of all your competitors ranking on the first page of Google while you languish somewhere around page 100? Then maybe it's time to change how you approach your online marketing strategy. As that wise old saying goes, "How can you expect tomorrow to be any different, if you don't change what you do today?".

Call 0425 204 887 today, and as sure as the sun coming up in the east, your business will rank. With first page rankings guaranteed in the contract and thousands of first page rankings already obtained throughout Australia for businesses just like yours, it's the easiest phone call you'll ever have to make.

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

Now this is a lovely thing to wake up to on a Saturday morning. SEO North Sydney are #1 in Google search for the much sought after search term, 'SEO Sydney'!

How to Value a Click on the First Page of Google

There are only two ways to get on the first page of Google. One, you can pay for it (via Google Pay Per Click), or two, you can get there organically.

The only way to work out how much a click is actually worth, is to ask yourself how much would you have to pay for it (via Pay Per Click) if you weren't getting that click for free on the organic side of the search page? In the case of search terms like SEO and SEO Sydney (which are searches from one of the single most competitive spaces in Australia - because everyone competing for the first page is naturally an SEO expert), the answer to that question is: north of $36 and $38 PER CLICK'.

That's right. If you pay to be on the first page of an SEO or SEO Sydney search via Pay Per Click, every single time someone clicks on your ad it costs you nearly $40!

Google AdWords Costings

Why Pay Per Click When You Can Get Free Clicks Instead?

Anyone who's ever spoken to me in person or on the phone about SEO will have heard me say, "It's a lot easier to take the boat to where the fish are, than to get the fish to come to you". A metaphor that holds true in the Organic Search v PPC debate. Because while PPC is a strategy that can work for your business, Google themselves tell us that 90% of all traffic is organic, with only 10% of the search traffic generated from the PPC side of the page. So given this salient bit of information, if 90% of the people click on the organic search (rather than the paid ads), then logic dictates that getting on the organic side of the search is where 90% of your online marketing budget should go. QED.

And I don't know about you, but if I had to pay $40 every time someone clicked on me via a Google search, I'd go out of business quicker than you can say, "Elvis has left the building!". And besides, why would I want to pay for a click, when I can get an endless supply of free clicks on the organic side of Google's search, simply by implementing Google's Best Practice search methodology?

The Google Dance

Naturally the organic Google search results fluctuate. One day you're SERP (Search Engine Raking Position) #1, the next day you're SERP #3, the day that you're SERP #2, etc. The actual order ultimately isn't the thing that matters. What matters is that you're on the first page consistently (92% of people don't go past the first page of their Google search) and ideally find yourself in the top 3 (where 60.5% of the first page traffic goes). If you are, then the phone will ring and your business will grow.

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Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)

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Looking for SEO Sydney for your website? Then you've come to right place. Simply call 0425 204 887, today. The first page of Google is only one click away!

Written by Brian M LoganThe Doyen of All Things DigitalSEO North Sydney

Google has today announced that it is rolling out the Panda 4.0 update. While other SEO companies, who try to 'game' the system to get their clients better search results will be negatively impacted by this, SEO North Sydney clients, who are all run on a white hat content mapping strategy, will greatly benefit.

Bring it on I say, bring it on! This has the potential to be HUGE!

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Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)

Written by Brian M LoganThe Doyen of All Things DigitalSEO North Sydney

This is classified as 'The Law of Diffusion of Innovation'. And if you don't know the term, that's okay. Because you'll certainly understand the concept.

The Law of Diffusion of Innovation

When Do You Adopt Technology?

Think about when Apple released the first iphone for example. There were those who queued up for 12 hours outside a store to buy the product, because they wanted to be the first people to have it. There were those who bought the product when it had been out a little while (but was still considered 'the hot new product to own'). Then there were the majority of people who bought iphones only when smartphones as a whole had gained a significant amount of market share, so they felt safe in the knowledge that the product worked as advertised. And finally there were those people who only ended up buying an iphone when their favourite mobile finally gave up the ghost and was no longer available.

But there comes a point, when the technology has been around long enough that someone not having it makes more of a statement about them than having it does.

Google Search Now Reaches Everybody

Back in the 60s / 70s and 80s, newspaper advertising and DM (Direct Marketing) and DR (Direct Response) was the best way reach the most clients for the least amount of money. Then in the late 80s and early 90s, call centres came into their own. (Why have hundreds of salesmen on the road, when you could just have a team of people selling over the phone from one central office?) Then in the mid to late 90s, the internet started to become ubiquitous, and online search (through Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Web Crawler and later Google) became de rigueur.

And as with all innovations, it took a long time to not only perfect the technology, but also to get people to trust it. I'm sure you remember a time when you'd happily search online, but God forbid you typed in your credit card into a website form for fear of someone making off with all your money! During these times there were the people who were all over the web and happily used search to find products or services (the Innovators and the Early Adopters). Then there were the (Early and Late) Majority who started trusting it, only because other people were trusting and using it. And lastly there were the Laggards. Those raised in an earlier era where going to the Yellow Pages or opening a newspaper was how you found a local product or service.

Fast forward to 2014 and we find ourselves living in a world where practically EVERYONE is searching for the products and services they want, online (via Google). And as 92% of all the people searching do not go past the first page of their Google search, it is now more important than at any time in history, to ensure your website appears on the first page of your relevant Google search. Because, as I always say, 'It is easier to take the boat to where the fish are, and drop a big, big net over the side. Than to try to get the fish to come to you'.

Where once the web and internet search was only used by those hip-cats who were ahead of the bell-curve. Now it is used by everyone. Young, middle aged and old alike. You, your children, your parents and your grandparents, all find what they want, online, via Google. It's just the way of the world now. And if everyone is searching for what you do and where you do it online, but can't find you on the first page. Then you might as well shut up shop and close the business. Because if you're not using the world's largest ever free lead funnel for your benefit, then you are officially a 'Laggard' in the technology stakes. And in an evolving business landscape, it is the Laggards who are the first to become extinct.

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Want to master SEO? Then book in yourself or your staff for some SEO Training Sydney today! Sydney's #1 SEO Trainer Brian M Logan shows you everything you need to get your company website on the first page of Google. SEO Training can be in-house (we come to you) or classroom based (you come to us).

Or you can always call us on 0425 204 887 if you want to leave your SEO Sydney requirements to the experts. Your website's 1st Page of Google results are guaranteed in writing in the contract.

Enjoy this free article? Great! Don't forget to Like it, Tweet it and LINK to it from your blog or website. Your sharing of the page with your friends is greatly appreciated! :)

Written by Brian M LoganThe Doyen of All Things DigitalSEO North Sydney

Author

Brian M Logan is an on-line marketing, SEO and copywriting expert with over 15 years' experience in the web and over 20 years' experience with the written word.

This blog is primarily designed for entrepreneurs and business owners, with a specific focus on helping Small Businesses and SMEs gain greater market share via online search strategies. Without breaking the bank.

As a screenwriter and novelist repped out of Hollywood by one of the world's 'Big 3' agencies, Brian also adds the occasional creative writing sample to this blog (when the mood strikes him), by way of a change of pace.